Appealing to his audience
Once you have an understanding of the social and historical context of the play you’re studying, you can begin to delve deeper into Shakespeare’s motivation for composing it. It is important to remember that both of the monarchs that reigned during Shakespeare’s career were big fans of his work, and would often see his plays performed, as well as provide financial support to his theatrical endeavours. Knowing this, Shakespeare would of course seek to appease his royal fans by presenting plays with messages that were agreeable to them.
For example, Elizabeth I represented a much more tolerant religious climate in England, ending the persecution of Protestants by her predecessor Queen Mary I. This new religious tolerance was a point of pride for Elizabeth and for much of England, and so part of Shakespeare’s purpose as a playwright would be to appeal to his royal patron by celebrating religion, or reminding his audience of its importance – he wouldn’t dare criticise it. As such, we see many religious allusions in his plays, be they through the language, supernatural characters, or the sense of justice often felt at the end of his plays. This is important to think about whenever you talk about religious themes in Shakespeare’s plays.
Beyond merely trying to please Queen Elizabeth, Shakespeare was actually a great admirer of hers. In the beginning of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, he writes deeply flattering, lyrical lines about her, describing her as “a fair vestal throned by the west”, and an “imperial votress” (Act 2 Scene 1), describing her as so serene that Cupid’s arrow is “quenched in the chaste beams of the watery moon” (Act 2 Scene 1) – a beautiful and poignant testament to her being The Virgin Queen. The character of Titania, the queen of the fairies, can also be said to echo Elizabeth in some respects. Titania is graceful, powerful, and a protector: she is unafraid to stand up to Oberon when he tries to take her late friend’s child, who is in her care, away from her. She fiercely protects the child, as Elizabeth protects England.
Shakespeare’s plays did, of course, appeal to many more people than just the monarch: by responding to current events and opinions of his time, he makes his plays highly relevant to his large audience. Shakespeare references his political and social milieu through the settings of his plays: it is notable that while Shakespeare’s plays were performed in England, many of them are set in other countries, in many cases countries which were at odds with England in some respect. This allows him to associate certain ideas with certain places, both commenting on those places and emphasising the themes in his plays.
For example, Shakespeare sets the cautionary tale of Romeo and Juliet in Verona, Italy. While England was in a time of religious flux, Italy had remained stable in its Roman Catholicism for many years. Elizabeth I had brought about relative religious tolerance, though Catholics were somewhat perceived as ‘the other,’ so setting Romeo and Juliet in a place where everything is different, even backwards, permeates the play with a sense of chaos.
Similarly, the tensions between Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots could be said to be the cause of Shakespeare’s focus on Scotland in Macbeth. The characters Duncan, Macbeth, and Malcolm are all actual monarchs of Scotland, who ruled consecutively in the eleventh century. Though they were long dead by the time the play was first performed, Shakespeare’s use of Scotland as a setting would have certainly piqued the interest of his audience. The time of Macbeth’s first performance was still seeing the last battles of the Anglo-Scottish wars, so Shakespeare portrays Scotland as a place where evil happens – a notion amplified by the inclusion of the witches. He does not overtly criticise Scotland, however. This is because at the time of its first performance, King James of England (Shakespeare’s second royal patron) was also on the Scottish throne.
Responding to his critics
While Shakespeare’s work was appreciated by many, there were of course those in opposition to his plays. Not a lot is known about who among Shakespeare’s contemporaries particularly disliked his plays, as literary criticism didn’t take off until later in the seventeenth century; however, it is well known that the Puritans, factional members of the Protestant faith, deplored the theatre. The Puritans believed in a strict code of religious conduct, and thought that the theatre, with its guffawing comedic characters and cross-dressing, was highly immoral – not to mention the drinking and gambling that often took place amongst the audience before and after the plays. Shakespeare’s response to this Puritan criticism can be noticed in some of his plays.
In Twelfth Night, Shakespeare mocks Sir Toby and Sir Andrew, both knights of the realm, as fools and cowards, whose self-indulgent “quaffing and drinking” is only tolerated because of their social status. However, he is even harsher on Malvolio the puritanical steward, who, after an ineffectual attempt at social climbing, is almost entirely robbed of his dignity. Shakespeare’s condemnation of Malvolio’s puritanical tendencies seems to have been a response to real-life opposition to the theatre from Puritans. The aristocracy, on the other hand, were Shakespeare’s patrons, so he could only go so far in holding them up to ridicule.
Voicing his opinion
There are many instances in which we see Shakespeare’s own opinion coming through. Shakespeare often criticises the popular ways of thinking in his time, although he generally does so in a gentle way that is not threatening to his audience’s worldview. Moral ambiguity is a famous aspect of Shakespeare’s plays, and is generally the device by which he makes these gentle criticisms.
For example, The Tempest makes extensive reference to the Age of Discovery, and the colonisation of ‘new worlds,’ which was a point of pride for England as the first nation to establish a permanent colony. Shakespeare echoes this colonisation through Prospero’s arrival on the island, and how he enslaves the spirits who inhabit it. Shakespeare does celebrate this colonisation to some extent; Prospero is said to have rescued the spirit Ariel from being “imprisoned... painfully [for] a dozen years” (Act 1 Scene 2) in a tree by the witch Sycorax, yet he threatens to exact the same fate upon Ariel again “if thou more murmur’st” (Act 1 Scene 2). This flash of cruelty allows Shakespeare to subtly criticise colonisation, without being too controversial. While Prospero generally seem to be quite fond of Ariel, however, he feels very different about Caliban, whom he describes as being “not honoured with human shape” (Act 1 Scene 2). Caliban, clearly a representation of the ‘savage’ people found in new colonies, is bestial. He tries to rape Miranda, and his name is almost a malapropism for ‘cannibal,’ mirroring the xenophobic misconceptions about native peoples. However, whilst the audience are encouraged to laugh at him, there is also an element of pity introduced later on when Caliban speaks some of the most poignant beautiful lines in the entire play, “sometimes voices / That if I had waked after a long sleep / Will make me sleep again; and then in dreaming / The clouds methought would open, and show riches / Ready to drop upon me” (Act 3 Scene 2). The lyrical beauty of this verse makes it impossible for the audience to ridicule Caliban in this moment; it forces them to sympathise with him, allowing Shakespeare to very gently criticise their xenophobic opinion of native peoples.
A similar criticism is made in The Merchant of Venice; we are encouraged to mock and dislike Shylock, who is the clear villain of the play. Shylock, who is portrayed as a combination of several stereotypes against Jews, is the butt of most of the play’s jokes. He is strongly identified with Judaism by Antonio, who refers to his “hard... Jewish heart” (Act 4 Scene 1). He seems to be a Jew before he is a human, and is described as “this devil” (Act 4 Scene 1). However, through encouraging his audience to act on their prejudice by laughing at Shylock, Shakespeare brings this prejudice to their attention. By way of the famous “hath not a Jew eyes?” (Act 3 Scene 1) speech, the audience begins to feel some pity for Shylock. It is still a haughty type of pity – Shakespeare’s audience look down on Shylock, and feel sorry for him – yet pity is better than loathing.
Shakespeare also challenges conventional notions of gender. Disguised as Cesario, Viola is convincing and resourceful, showing far more agency than Orsino, her male love interest. Nevertheless, even in disguise, Viola tends toward the feminine, showing interest in music and shrinking from a sword fight – compared with her identical twin brother, Sebastian, an able swordsman. ‘Cesario’ serves as a converging point of identity between the twins, an androgynous figure of desire for both men and women. The archetypal comic resolution marries off each twin to a suitable opposite sex partner, and yet the twins’ indistinguishable appearance reminds us of the constructed nature of traditional gender roles.
